New Jersey's First City

Jersey City / Hoboken Real Estate Ads

Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003

Mechanicsville-Long Branch-Asbury Park-Brielle; State 36, County 9, and State 4N.
Mechanicsville to Brielle, 34.8 m.
Route is paralleled between Mechanicsville and Long Branch by the Jersey Central R.R.; between Long Branch and Brielle by the New York and Long Branch R.R. Plentiful accommodations.
Concrete roadbed, two and three lanes wide.

State 36 runs along the southern shore of Raritan and Sandy Hook Bays through a series of small bathing and fishing resorts. At Highland Beach, the entrance to Sandy Hook, the route turns south over an ocean boulevard that passes through many of New Jersey's largest summer resorts. Almost every form of seaside dwelling is represented in the architecture of the homes along the way, from palatial mansion to tent.

State 36 branches east from State 35 (see Tour 22) in MECHANICSVILLE, 0 m. (35 alt.) (see Tour 22).

At 2.8 m. the highway runs between two small clear lakes, abandoned pits made by brickmakers digging clay. Cherry cider, apple cider, and quantities of smoked fish are sold at the numerous roadstands.

At 4.1 m. is the junction with a hard-surfaced road.

Left on this road is KEANSBURG, 1.1 m. (10 alt., 1,893 pop.), on Lower New York Bay, a resort and port of call for pleasure and fishing craft, with a summer population estimated at 50,000. A boardwalk almost 2 miles long, bordered by bath-houses and other concessions, runs along the beach, almost all of which is open to the public. At the foot of Maplewood Ave. is an open-air MARKET where sea food – just off the boat – is sold. The summer season ends with a carnival, a baby parade, and other events, under an elected king and queen. During prohibition, bootleggers' speedboats landed large shipments at a decaying steamboat pier, now used only by small boats. Keansburg was named in 1884 for Senator John Kean of Elizabeth.

BELFORD, 6.5 m. (20 alt.), is an old town of fishermen's houses, formerly called Shoal Harbor. In the salt meadows (L) small fishing boats, actually on narrow creeks, seem to be floating on the heavy grass.

A small elevation at 6.7 m. (R) is GARRETT'S HILL, where Lord Cornwallis encamped after the Battle of Monmouth. From this hill at the end of the Revolution horsemen started for Philadelphia with the news that the departing British had weighed anchor in New York Bay.

LEONARDO, 8.4 m. (20 alt.), covering several former farms of the Leonard family, consists of a group of cottages set in a large old orchard. Plans have been made for a larger lagoon for fishing boats, because of the proximity to the fishing banks off Sandy Hook.

At 9 m.,(R), against the skyline of the hill, is a tall and narrow dwelling, the former OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN HOUSE (private). After it had passed from the hands of the operatic and music-hall impresario it became an important headquarters for liquor smuggling, with a secret radio station, a murder story, and a small cement garage, said to be a freight elevator to hidden stores beneath.

During 1928 and 1929 the house contained one of the two most powerful radio stations in the United States, flashing messages from Maine to Florida. Airplanes were used by the smugglers to handle rush orders. In October, 1929, Federal agents raided the place, but all of the prisoners they captured were acquitted. Much later the man said to have been the ring boss, Al Lillien, was found shot to death in the garret here. He was reaching for a door to escape. Downstairs two empty coffee cups suggested that a friendly conference had preceded the killing. The murderer was never found.

ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS, 9.4 m. (40 alt., 2,000 pop.), founded in 1671 as Portland Poynt by Richard Hartshorne, a London Quaker, lies on the shore of Sandy Hook Bay within the sheltering arm of the Hook. The Jersey Central R.R. connects at its piers with fast steamboats that carry an army of summer commuters and tourists between this point and New York. The town has one main business street, bare of trees and crowded with small stores and shops. Atlantic Highlands, called Bay View in 1881, was the site of a Methodist camp meeting with a sylvan amphitheater and an octagonal tabernacle.

At 9.4 m. is the junction with First Ave., a paved road. This is an alter- nate route for about 3 miles between this point and Highland Beach. It is recommended for panoramic views not found on State 36. Left on this road to Bay View Ave., 0.5 m.; R. on Bay View Ave., called the Scenic Drive, climbing sharply and passing old Victorian houses with the towers, turrets, bay windows, hidden porches, irregular contours, and baroque decoration popular in the late 19th century.

At 0.7 m., around a sharp curve, is the junction (L) with a dirt road.

Left on this road, downhill, 0.1 m., to HENRY HUDSON'S SPRING (open), also known as the Water Spout. That the explorer visited the spring is unconfirmed tradition. The Gloucester fishing fleet, sometimes numbering 300 schooners, used it regularly. In 1830 it was bought by Louis Desperaux, who built a cottage nearby, laid a pipe line, and charged shipmasters 5 cents a barrel for the fresh water. The spout house, "The Spout," and a flight of stone steps through a picturesque grotto leading from the house to the bay, have been restored. A man named Eldridge, once owner of the place, is believed to have been the first person in this country to gather clams with a long-handled rake. In 1863 he discovered that the entire bottom of the bay was covered with clams, but he kept this a secret until his heavy takes became common knowledge and his methods were exposed. Farmers deserted the soil and shell fishermen flocked to the spot in such numbers that the sheriff had to quell the ensuing riots.

HIGH POINT, 1.5 m. on Scenic Dr., has mounted binoculars (10 cents) available for a sharp view of a panorama that embraces New York City, Long Island, and a broad sweep of Atlantic Ocean.

MOUNT MITCHELL, 2.5 m. (250 alt.), offers another fine view of land and sea, including the busy commerce of Ambrose Channel, entrance to New York Harbor. Mount Mitchell is the first land seen from incoming transatlantic liners.

With sharp hairpin curves, the road drops down the wooded slope behind the Highlands of Navesink, the collective name for all these headlands, and rejoins State 36 at 3.2 m. 

East of Atlantic Highlands, State 36 runs on Memorial Driveway for 0.5 m., then on a six-lane route with a parkway. Tall pampas grass is planted on the wooded hills on each side of the highway.

At 11.5 m. is the junction (L) with the eastern end of the scenic alter- nate route (see above).

At 12 m. is WATER WITCH, a section of Highlands, and scene of James Fenimore Cooper's novel of that name. The dwelling of 1762 in the story is gone, and its site lost. Near it stood the basswood tree from which the American patriot, Capt. Joshua Huddy, was hanged by Tories. The site, Waterwitch Ave. opposite Bayside Dr., is marked by a granite monument erected by the Sons of the American Revolution. A sign at the entrance to the business section advises: "Drive Carefully – Hospital, 7 miles."

HIGHLANDS, 12.5 m. (30 alt., 1,877 pop.), formerly Parkertown, is a fishing village and summer resort close by the ocean.

The fishing industry has declined greatly because of the competition with refrigerated cargoes from more distant points. On Monmouth Hills (R) the U. S. Navy in 1903 erected its first wireless station.

At 12.6 m. is the junction with an improved road.

Left on this road (walk) to Beacon Hill where are the twin towers of NAVESINK LIGHTHOUSE, 0.2 m. (open 9-5). The original structure built here in 1828 was replaced in 1862 by the present brownstone, fortress-like building. In 1841 a Fresnel long-range lens, the first in this country, was brought from France for use in one of the towers. It is now on exhibition. Oil lamps in the south tower were replaced in 1898 by the first electric lighting unit installed in an American lighthouse. Today the tower has an incandescent light of 9,000,000 candlepower, visible for 22 miles, one of the most powerful on American shores. At the insistence of local residents, a blind was put on the tower to keep the revolving light from flashing into house windows. In front of the twin lights of a century ago, before the days of telegraph, were two windmill-like towers with large signal arms that reported the arrival of vessels. These signals were read on Staten Island by telescope and there relayed by another semaphore to a watcher on the roof of the Merchants' Exchange Building in New York.

State 36 ends in Highland Beach, at the eastern end of the Memorial Bridge crossing Navesink River. The route swings R. here on Monmouth County 9, or Ocean Blvd., a concrete-paved road of three lanes paralleling the ocean beach.

HIGHLAND BEACH, 13.1 m. (10 alt., 50 pop.), is a long line of old houses, many of which have been converted into roadhouses. There are also modern bungalows.

At 13.1 m. is the junction with a graveled road.

Left on this road is the entrance to SANDY HOOK, 0.1 m. (adm. only on application to commanding officer of Fort Hancock), which juts 5 miles into the sea. The narrow sandy waste is overrun with poison ivy, huge holly trees, and many of the beach-plum bushes so cherished by the Indians that the first white owner was obliged to buy the bushes after paying for the land. The buildings of FORT HANCOCK, important unit in the fortifications around New York Harbor, are at the tip of Sandy Hook. It was to the Hook that Sir Henry Clinton took his army after the Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778. The lighthouse, 85 feet high and erected in 1763, is the oldest in service in the Western Hemisphere. American patriots sought to destroy it to mislead British shipping during the Revolution, but the light was too strongly held by the English. Smokeless powder, developed at nearby Farmingdale by Hudson Maxim, was first tried out by the Army at the Fort Hancock proving grounds in 1891. Heavy ordnance is still tested here. The fort has a garrison of 1,040 officers and men.

South of Highland Beach for 5 miles the road runs along a narrow neck of land, once a sand bar. The combination of hills, river, and sea is found nowhere else in the State. On the oceanside a long parapet of great boulders parallels the beach. Summer residents cross the railroad tracks to climb private steps to their own platforms on the wide stone wall, and then go down ladders to their strips of narrow beach.

At 15.2 m. is the junction (R) with Rumson Rd.

Right on this road across the Shrewsbury River and through the Rumson Hills is RUMSON, 1.5 m. (50 alt., 2,073 pop.), center of luxurious estates. The Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers here are the scene of motorboat and sailboat racing in summer and skating contests and iceboat regattas in winter. Close to the river (R) is the SEA BRIGHT LAWN TENNIS AND CRICKET CLUB (private), where invitation tennis championships are decided every summer, usually during the first week in August.

SEA BRIGHT, 15.4 m. (10 alt., 900 pop.), lies between the ocean and Shrewsbury River. In 1936 its area was doubled by dredging the river channel and filling the shallows along the river front. Sea Bright today has a short, wide, treeless main street, fenced from the railroad line, which goes through its center. It is one of the older shore resorts, originally a fishing village called Nauvoc, and later a busy landing on the riverside for New York excursion steamers.

South of Sea Bright, along both sides of Ocean Blvd., are expensive summer residences protected by enormous stone bulkheads. The highway has to be dug out of sand drifts at one place after every easterly gale; lawns and hedges are ruined. Many of the old mansions have been undermined, and several have been washed away.

At LOW MOOR, 16 m., several islands in the Shrewsbury have been joined with the riverbank.

MONMOUTH BEACH, 17.3 m. (15 alt., 457 pop.), is another resort community. The borough leases to local members the spacious MONMOUTH BEACH CLUB (L), with its ballroom and open-air pool (private). It is a white building with an emerald-green roof and bright awnings. LONG BRANCH, 19.8 m. (25 alt., 18,399 pop.), second largest city on the New Jersey coast, is an all-year residential community as well as a summer resort of consequence. The town has also acquired a number of manufacturing establishments, among them garment mills that have been targets of a lively unionization campaign as runaway shops from higher wage districts.

The resort began in 1788 with a boarding house for Philadelphians who brought with them blue laws and religious meetings. By 1819 ocean bathing had become somewhat popularized but promiscuous bathing was taboo. When the white flag was run up, it was ladies' hour; the men had their turn when the red flag was hoisted. Later, in the 80's, however, a belle could not bathe without a male escort. The first gigolos in America were introduced at Long Branch, not as dancing partners but as bathing companions. Low-necked, spangled evening gowns were cut to knee length for the beach parade. The hotels were far back from the ocean and the beach was concealed by a high bluff and dunes. The only remains of the once famous bluff is the downgrade of Broadway, back from the shore front. Within the memory of old residents, there were cornfields on land now 600 feet offshore. The present Ocean Avenue is the third boulevard at the ocean front; each earlier one was destroyed by the sea.

Before 1839, New Yorkers arrived in search of seashore homes, and a boom came with them. Hotels and cottages were built, blue laws were displaced by dancing, drinking, gambling, and fast driving along the hard Blue Drive, now Ocean Avenue. In the 1850's another boom brought impressive hotels and the resort became a rival of Saratoga. A popular race track, Monmouth Park, was opened in 1870, and a railroad, connecting the town with New York in 1874, brought a peak of prosperity.

Long Branch, decked out in the cast-iron trimmings of the U. S. Grant era and the fretwork of early Pullman art, became the playground for all the vivid personalities of the flamboyant 80's and 90's. Phil Daly ran his gambling club in a blaze of glitter even on Sundays while his wife played hymns in her chapel in the Daly garden. When Daly died, his wife decided to carry on his clubhouse, but her hymns got the best of her. Dr. Helmbold, a patent-medicine millionaire, bought old hotels to tear down and a city block to rebuild as he strove to make Long Branch a fit place in which to drive his showy tallyho. He died a hopeless lunatic trying to sweep the sunshine from his front porch.

Here Lillie Langtry kept her private car for an entire summer on a railroad siding adjoining the home of her current protector; there Diamond im Brady drove Lillian Russell in an electric coupe brightly illuminated on the interior rather than with headlights, so that all might see and enjoy; and here Josie Mansfield and Ed Stokes admired Col. Jim Fisk and his regiment in their gold braid as they played at drilling on the Bluff Parade Grounds.

A wide boardwalk extends for 1.8 miles past amusement concessions, the fishing pier, and the summer hotels. The highway runs beside the boardwalk in full view of the ocean and beach. It widens to four lanes with a parkway in the center.

At Broadway is the former GREYHOUND RACE TRACK (R), now used for midget automobile races, a mechanical substitute for the horse racing that built the city's reputation. After the abolition of horse racing the resort declined. In recent years it has become popular as a vacation place for Italians of the Newark district.

In front of the track is a life-sized STATUE OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD, who died in Long Branch after he was shot in 1881. The dying President was brought from Washington to his summer cottage on a special train. To avoid a jolting ride by wagon, railroad laborers and townspeople worked all night laying half a mile of railroad track from the main line to the cottage, which stood on the grounds of the old Elberon Hotel, Ocean Ave. opposite Lincoln Ave. (Both cottage and hotel have been demolished.) The volunteer laborers were served by the hotels with coffee and sand- wiches.

President Grant for a time made Long Branch the Nation's summer capital. GRANT'S HOUSE (private), 991 Ocean Ave., is a two-and-one-half- story, square, frame box with an enclosed octagonal porch extending from its southeastern corner. It has been redecorated in gray stucco, with white half-timber effect. Woodrow Wilson lived at SHADOW LAWN in West Long Branch. Presidents Hayes and Harrison stayed at the old Elberon Hotel.

At WEST END, 21.1 m., a part of Long Branch, is the SAN ALFONSO RETREAT HOUSE of the Redemptorist Fathers (L), a week-end retreat for Catholic laymen. Here are two continuous rows of large estates and, at the southern extremity near Takanassees Bridge, a little gray EPISCOPAL CHURCH (R), known as the "Church of the Presidents." Wilson, Grant, Arthur, and Garfield attended services here.

At 21.7 m. the highway crosses Whale Creek and Whale Pond, recalling whaling days on this coast prior to 1860.

South of West End large summer dwellings of varied architecture, ranging, with occasional exceptions, from the merely gaudy to the noisily hideous, line both sides of the highway.

ELBERON, 22.6 m. (30 alt.), southernmost subdivision of Long Branch, had its beginning with the railroads. Despite many "To Let" and "For Sale" signs on extensive estates, the properties are well kept. Between them is an occasional fish house where fresh fish are landed every morning from the powerboats that tend the pound nets offshore.

DEAL, 24 m. (25 alt., 800 pop.), one of the newer and more fashionable resorts, was named for Deal, England. It has many elaborate homes, a borough-owned BATHING CASINO, tennis courts (private), and a public beach (nominal fees).

ALLENHURST, 24.7 m. (30 alt., 573 pop.), appears to be a continuation of Deal. Along the highway for a mile are large modern homes. Unlike most shore resorts, Allenhurst and its neighbors have shaded streets.

At the southern end of Allenhurst the highway skirts the eastern edge of DEAL LAKE (R), which reaches inland 2 miles with its five fingers. On its wooded shores are many attractive summer homes. At the southern end of the lake the highway swings sharply L., closely following the line of the boardwalk.

ASBURY PARK, 26 m. (15 alt., 14,981 pop.), is one of the best-known resorts in northern New Jersey. The streets are closely built with cottages, boarding houses, and hotels, some of them open all year.

In 1870, when this region was a wilderness, James A. Bradley, a New York businessman, visited the adjoining Ocean Grove camp meeting. He saw the possibilities of developing a large summer resort and bought 500 wooded acres, which he developed primarily as a summering place for temperance advocates so that no bad influences might encroach on the adjoining camp meeting. The city today reaches nearly 2 miles inland from the beach. The long boardwalk is lined with eating places, a fishing pier, recreational attractions, solariums, and shops where everything from imported Oriental rugs to souvenirs of the Morro Castle disaster are sold.

The city has erected on the oceanside a CONVENTION HALL and an AUDITORIUM. The entire boardwalk and its facilities have been leased to an operating company.

At the northwestern corner of the auditorium the steamship Morro Castle grounded in September, 1934, after a fire in which 122 lives were lost.

At the southern end of the boardwalk, swinging (R) past a PENNY ARCADE (L), the route passes WESLEY LAKE with its flotilla of bicycle-motored swan boats.

At 26.8 m. is the junction with State 4N.

Left on State 4N. The carefully guarded IRON GATES of Ocean Grove are L.

OCEAN GROVE, 26.8 m. (20 alt., 1,182 pop.), belongs to the Reconstruction Era and Queen Victoria. The resort was developed in the period of Eastlake architecture, with odd half-houses to which tent fronts are added, with fretwork villas, and with neo-Swiss chalets of the Centennial Exposition type, ornamented with tiers of narrow porches and turrets.

Founded in 1869 for Methodist camp meetings, Ocean Grove has always strictly observed the religious ideals of the founders. From the beginning, vehicular traffic has been forbidden from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday. The city's gates are closed during that period and none but pedestrians may enter or leave; nor is bathing or any secular business permitted on the Sabbath.

At the head of Pilgrims' Pathway is the AUDITORIUM, which, like Solomon's Temple, was built without the use of nails. Here are held concerts by well-known singers and musicians. Near the auditorium is a fine, clay MODEL OF THE CITY OF JERUSALEM, in scale.

Each summer during the last week in August saints and sinners, penitents and probationers, evangelists, singers, and trombone players come from all parts of the country to hit the sawdust trail that leads to the Mourners' Bench before the vast platform in the auditorium. After hearing the call to repentance and new life, the pilgrims are joined by most of the population of the resort for the "march around Jerusalem," which closes the meeting. The tents, giving Ocean Grove the name of the Tent City and the authentic character of a camp meeting, are in the grove surrounding the auditorium.

On the boardwalk are the platform and choir seats for the famous beach meetings, for 60 years the scene of services during the summer on Sunday evening at 6 o'clock.

State 4N runs south along the edge of Ocean Grove.

At 27 m. is the junction with State 33 (see Tour 20).

BRADLEY BEACH, 27.8 m. (20 alt., 3,306 pop.), the first resort in the country to charge admission to fenced-in public beaches, is a strictly residential community begun by James A. Bradley, founder of Asbury Park. The plan of selling metal tags for admission to the beach has spread widely. The Woolley Fisheries have large pound nets offshore.

AVON BY THE SEA, 28.6 m. (15 alt., 1,200 pop.), is an old community of little more than half a square mile. Shark River adds to its water front and attracts many crabbing parties.

BELMAR, 29.5 m. (25 alt., 3,491 POP.), is a center for amateur anglers. Two 300-foot fishing piers extend into the ocean from the mile-and-a-half boardwalk. The BELMAR FISHING CLUB (private), on the land end of a roomy pier, is one of the largest surf angling clubs, with a membership of 585. Regattas and social events are sponsored by the Belmar Yacht Club. The summer population is estimated at 35,000.

SPRING LAKE, 31.2 m. (20 alt., 1,745 pop.), a fashionable resort on the ocean front, is built around a placid sheet of water from which it takes its name. Around the shore are mansions, cottages, and charming drives. The lake swarms with black bass, sunfish, pickerel, and trout. On the ocean are two miles of beach and a narrow boardwalk.

SEA GIRT, 32 m. (15 alt., 386 pop.), is New Jersey's summer capital. Units of the New Jersey National Guard train here each summer at the STATE MILITARY ENCAMPMENT (L), 32.8 m. (open from sunrise to sundown). The camp is on the shore of Stockton Lake, named for Commodore Stockton, a former resident who commanded the fleet that joined with General Fremont to take California from the Mexicans in 1846. The GOVERNOR's RESIDENCE, known as the Little White House, is near the main entrance to the camp grounds. It is a simple frame building with wide porches. For three or four days each summer, set aside as "Governor's Day," delegations from every county in the State assemble here for speeches and band concerts.

MANASQUAN, 33.6 m. (15 alt., 2,320 pop.), is a summer community with Manasquan River offering facilities for sport. Along the beach near Manasquan the first successful American experiment in organized life-saving was made in 1850 when 201 persons were rescued from the Ayrshire. A dangerous sand bar running parallel to the shore caused many wrecks. Dr. William A. Newell, then Congressman and later Governor, started the movement for a government life-saving service in 1848. Through Dr. Newell's ingenuity was devised the crude apparatus that has developed into the Lyle life-line gun and the breeches buoy. Robert Louis Stevenson lived here for six weeks in 1888 while preparing for his migration to the South Seas, where he died of tuberculosis. He spent most of the time in bed; part of The Master of Ballantrae was written at the Union House, later burned. On bright days he went out with his stepson, Lloyd Osborne, walking along the river or sailing. Saint Gaudens, the sculptor, visited Stevenson here to make impressions of the author's hands for the medallion now hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The Indian name of the place means "an enclosure with a house," the braves parking their wives here for safety while they went hunting and fishing. Manasquan is today a year-round community with a large summer 685 colony.

At BRIELLE, 34.8 m. (20 alt., 684 pop.) (see Tour 22), State 4N forms a junction with State 35 (see Tour 22). 

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